


nouns & books & show and tell

by advanced_fanatic



Series: Fukuzawa Yukichi's Home for Stray Dogs [38]
Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Stranger Things (TV 2016), 文豪ストレイドッグス | Bungou Stray Dogs
Genre: F/F, Gen, Implied/Referenced Sex, POV Outsider, and now I have an entire fucking theology for this AU, and now they're all just fucking around, and so much shit in my feel-good universe, anyway yeah this totally got away from me, but you can see it as that if you want to, guess i shouldn 't have name-dropped homura in 'all i want' and sayaka in 'hey sister'!, madoka and homura are going on a honeymoon tour of different universes, not? really?, the gist of it is, today on: my propensity to use random cameo characters instead of OCs bites me in the ass, which i might write as some sort of Madoka Magica fic someday, will goes through so much shit in canon, with sayaka mami and kyoko as chaperones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 07:15:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28845168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/advanced_fanatic/pseuds/advanced_fanatic
Summary: It's a normal day in the carpool line at the elementary school--which means Will Byers is bracing himself and hoping that both the Fukuzawa family and Madoka Kaname and her girlfriend don't come through it for their respective siblings.
Relationships: Dazai Osamu & Kunikida Doppo (Bungou Stray Dogs), Miki Sayaka & Shizuki Hitomi, Tanizaki Naomi & Miki Sayaka, Tanizaki Naomi & Shizuki Hitomi
Series: Fukuzawa Yukichi's Home for Stray Dogs [38]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1794946
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	nouns & books & show and tell

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Minyo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minyo/gifts).



> Honestly, this...really got away from me! I know it's definitely not my usual fare, especially since I reference three other fandoms here, but hopefully it still makes sense to people who haven't seen Madoka Magica and Stranger Things! I actually have a whole story detailing the Holy Quintet's lives in this universe and how they got there and what's going on with them, but idk if I'll write it or if they'll just be recurring side characters, haha.  
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

Mr. Byers considered himself a good teacher. Sure, second graders could be a bit of a handful, but honestly, there was no way they could ever be worse than he and his friends had been as children, and whenever he felt like his students were being a bit of a handful for him, he just reminded himself of the time they had all broken into a government building for the express purpose of looking at the radios, or when they convinced themselves that Mike’s girlfriend El had been kidnapped when she had the flu for two weeks and ended up on a government watchlist.  
However, Tanizaki Naomi and her friends were really stretching his patience.  
Naomi was part of a group of three, and the girls--Naomi, Sayaka, and Hitomi--were all straight up insane, especially when combined with Sayaka’s older sister, Madoka, who was in college, and her girlfriend, Homura, who had apparently skipped several different grades and became a college professor at 17. Unluckily for Mr. Byers, Madoka and Homura usually picked up Sayaka, who often carpooled with Hitomi and Naomi, and that meant about fifteen minutes of pure, unadulterated chaos in the carpool line until they finally left, and today was no different.  
“Listen, the fact that the universe is heading unstoppably towards entropy neither enables us to live a fully hedonistic life nor forces us to devote our lives to helping others! The universe’s fate is neither our fault nor our responsibility, and the fact that adults are forcing this narrative on us from such a young age is so fucked up. Like, we’re kids! Middle schoolers should not bear the weight of the world on their shoulders! We should be allowed to make wishes without being punished and live out our lives with the people we love!” Homura ranted. Behind her car, someone honked, but she didn’t seem to notice.  
“Just because we don’t have a responsibility towards the greater good of the universe doesn’t mean we shouldn’t help out anyway, though, because people deserve to have happiness in their lives, and they deserve to be able to live good lives! We’re put in the position we are so that we can help others, not so that we can just waste our lives away, doing whatever we please, and ignoring the suffering all around us. If you’re only putting yourself in danger, what’s the harm in trying too hard to help others?” Madoka argued.  
“You know, I really have to get back to my class, the kids need supervision…” Mr. Byers said awkwardly, trying to shuffle away.  
“William, please tell Madoka that it hurts the people who love her to see her suffer over things that can’t be changed!” Homura exclaimed.  
“And tell Homura that just because sometimes you need to suffer to help the world doesn’t make it a bad or dangerous thing to do!” Madoka shot back.  
“The very nature of suffering makes it dangerous! It isn’t our responsibility to set ourselves on fire to keep the world warm!” Homura’s eyes flashed with real anger, matching the red ribbon in her hair for just a moment.  
“Helping others isn’t always destructive, though!” Madoka said. Mr. Byers took another slow step back. “And just because there’s a price, doesn’t make the wish not worth making! I'm sure you agree with me on that, don’t you Homura?”  
“That was a totally different situation,” Homura said.  
...Great, now they were talking in circles again. Madoka and Homura did this often when they were fighting--talking around some sort of event or maybe religion, talking about goddesses and demons, wishes and witches. They usually cut themselves off when they realized Mr. Byers was still listening, but he had heard enough to assume they were either really, really into fantasy RPGs (which Mr. Byers really couldn’t fault, as he was still in the same DnD group he’d been in since middle school), or had escaped a cult.  
“What’s the difference between setting yourself on fire to keep the world warm, as you called it, and setting the world on fire to keep one person warm?” Madoka asked. “There’s still fire and destruction.”  
Mr. Byers took another step back.  
“That was a good world, though,” Homura said. “And it would have worked out, too, if...oh, hey, William, I forgot you were there.”  
“Clearly,” he muttered. “And I’m guessing you home-brew campaigns, and that’s what your argument was about?”  
Madoka and Homura looked at each other. Madoka’s eyes sparkled while Homura smirked a little.  
“Sort of,” Madoka said.  
“Yeah, sort of. You know, Madoka likes playing God...and I enjoy being her devil,” Homura said. Madoka blushed, and Mr. Byers decided he, actually, didn’t really want to know what sorts of RPGs the young ladies were into. That sounded...uh. Private, to say the least.  
“Ahh! Sayaka, where did you get that sword?!” another teacher shrieked before Mr. Byers could come up with a response to that. He whirled around to see…  
“It’s just a stick!” Homura called out, and Mr. Byers could see that Sayaka was, indeed, just holding a long, sharp, blue stick--but a stick nonetheless.  
Naomi, holding a more normal looking stick, pouted. “I thought you said you can summon swords!” she said.  
“I definitely can!” Sayaka exclaimed. “Madoka! Homura! Let them see that it’s really a sword!”  
“You’re, like, seven here,” Homura deadpanned. “Wait until you’re at least a teenager.”  
“I’m eight, actually,” Sayaka said, “and if you guys weren’t cowards, you could be eight too!”  
Madoka shrugged, and unlocked the car door. “I think it’s kind of fun to be an adult here,” she said.  
“I like being an ethics professor,” Homura added.  
“I hate that you’re my ethics professor,” Madoka said. Homura grinned. Mr. Byers felt deep, immense pity for all the other students in that class, especially if they brought their, uh, roleplaying into it.  
“And I hate that Sakaguchi’s roommate was flirting with you earlier, but we all have our burdens to bear,” Homura said. “Anyway--Sayaka, Hitomi, Naomi! Who wants ice cream?”  
“Me!” Naomi called happily, joining in the chorus of the other two girls.  
“Can we play Kousuke’s CD in the car, too?” Sayaka asked. “Can we, can we, can we, please, please, please?”  
“I like Multiplication Vacation better,” Hitomi said.  
“I will throw myself from the car if we listen to that again,” Homura muttered. Madoka didn’t respond, instead waving cheerily at Mr. Byers and pulling out of the carpool line before the three girls had even buckled in.  
He closed his eyes and let out a sigh of relief. Oh, thank God--he didn’t have to deal with them for another 24 hours, and he didn’t have to worry about Naomi’s older siblingss showing up at the school. While they weren’t into...the things Madoka and Homura were (although Mr. Byers didn’t like to judge--RPGs were RPGs, no matter what context--he was just uncomfortable with knowing that information about a couple of teenage girls) they were plenty chaotic in their own way. The blonde boy and the girl were usually pretty sane, but the blonde boy was rarely seen without his twin(?), Dazai Osamu, who was Max’s personal enemy, although she refused to tell why, and who seemed to thrive on traumatizing the children with talk of suicide and either argued loudly with the blonde boy seemingly for his own entertainment or hung off him and begged for cuddles. The one time her oldest brother had shown up at the school, he’d psychoanalyzed another teacher, Agatsuma Zenitsu, and sent him home in tears. The young man was now permanently banned, but to Mr. Byer’s horror, he recognized him in the front seat of the Fukuzawa family car, making his way through a tub of icing. The young lady was driving, and, horror upon horrors, he could recognize Dazai, messing with a Switch, his blonde brother, and a few other kids in the car.  
What? Naomi had just been picked up, she was clearly carpooling with Sayaka and Hitomi today, right? Was Mr. Byers really going to have to deal with the two most chaotic groups of people he knew in the span of fifteen minutes?  
“Hi,” the girl said, “we’re here to pick up Tanizaki Naomi, Tanizaki Junichiro, and Nakajima Atsushi?”  
“Tanizaki Naomi was picked up a few minutes ago, but I’ll call Junichiro and Atsushi down,” Mr. Byers said.  
“Picked up?” the girl said. “By whom?”  
“Oh my fucking God, she’s been kidnapped,” Dazai hissed.  
The little girl sitting next to Dazai gasped. “By the mafia?”  
“Maybe,” Dazai said.  
His brother shoved him. “Don’t curse in front of Kyouka, idiot!”  
“She knows them all already,” Dazai complained.  
“Still! She’s five!”  
“Five and a half,” the little girl--Kyouka--corrected.  
“Five and a half! We haven’t even enrolled her in school yet!”  
“Who picked Naomi up?” asked the older girl, clearly as done with her siblings’ shit as Mr. Byers was.  
“Her friend Sayaka’s older sister, Madoka Kaname, and her girlfriend, Homura,” Mr. Byers said.  
“So they are dating, then,” said the oldest brother.  
“It appears so,” Mr. Byers said.  
“Good for them!”  
His sister frowned. “They weren’t supposed to pick up Naomi today, though. We didn’t talk to them about it, like, at all. And Shachou’s having dinner with Fukuchi tonight.”  
Dazai and the oldest brother snickered, and Mr. Byers really, really hated all the different references to sex he was having to shoulder today. At least Fukuzawa was an adult, and presumably this “Fukuchi” was as well, rather than two teenage girls who enjoyed airing out their roleplay issues in the carpool line.  
Luckily, Dazai’s snickering stopped abruptly. “Aw, fuck me! MadMax beat my high score again! God-fucking-dammit, hey, hey Doppo, can I borrow your phone? I need to call Chuuya, we need to Soukoku this shit!”  
“I just told you not to curse in front of Kyouka!” his brother--Doppo--protested. “And can’t you use your own phone?”  
“Nah, Chuuya blocked me,” Dazai said.  
“And yet you want to team up with him to beat some random person in online Smash?” Kunikida asked.  
“Yeah, I mean, we’re the best,” Dazai shrugged. “Plus, we’ve been rivals with MadMax since we were, like, seven.”  
...Right, that was even more concerning. Mr. Byers was definitely going to talk to Max about that, at some point, probably. Because she definitely knew Dazai by name, so she probably knew Chuuya, too, and yeah, her insane competitiveness was definitely what got her to become friends with them in the first place, but...seven year olds? Really?  
The oldest sister sighed. “Well, we’ll try to contact them, then...can you send out Atsushi and Junichiro?”  
“Sure,” Mr. Byers said, speed-walking back to the school. Thank God. Thank God they hadn’t been too terrible.  
The two nine year olds hurried out, chattering to each other, and Mr. Byers turned to the next car in the carline.  
Hopefully, it would be Hitomi’s family picking up all three girls tomorrow.


End file.
